President Obama’s Budget: More of the Same Failed Policies

The budget President Obama finally released today is months late and so full of gimmicks that the President cannot claim he is supporting deficit reduction. The fact is President Obama’s budget will never balance and it keeps the country on an unsustainable path of never ending deficits.

Right now, Democrats and Republicans each have a different plan for the direction of our country and how to spend taxpayer money to accomplish those goals. I believe that Americans should pay fewer taxes and the government should spend less. That’s why I supported the House conservative budget plan that fully repeals Obamacare, protects Medicare and Social Security for our seniors and future generations, and balances the budget in ten years. Recent reports indicate how dire the situation is: now is the time for entitlement reform.

The news in the most recent Social Security Trustees’ annual report released wasn’t good—the Trustees now project that the old age and disability trust funds combined will be unable to pay full benefits in 2033, three years sooner than projected in last year’s report.

Medicare is not sustainable in its current form. It costs too much even as the quality of care it provides falls well short of what seniors deserve. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare’s costs will reach $1.09 trillion in 2023, up from $551 billion in 2012.

Year after year we accumulate debt that will burden future generations and now is the time to take serious action to reduce our spending and our unsustainable level of national debt. As your representative in Congress, I have consistently voted to reduce federal spending. In fact, I voted against $2.3 trillion in new spending under the Bush Administration and against $7 trillion so far under the Obama Administration.

Earlier this year, I introduced a bill (H.R. 504) that will reduce the amount of money the federal government spends by at least $10 billion. My bill eliminates duplicative and inefficient federal programs based upon findings in the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) 2011 report and 2012 report. This bill is a step in the right direction, and I will continue to promote common sense, fiscally-conservative alternatives that will dramatically cut spending, cut taxes and shrink the size, power, and cost of the federal government.

In the end, it’s simple. The American government needs to be worthy of the people that it represents. For years, I have opposed the big-spending policies put in place by Democrats and Republicans alike and have voted in favor of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Your family balances its budget. Texas balances its budget. It’s time that the federal government did the same.